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PRESENTED BY 



[No. 5.] 

ISSUED BY 

The Central Committee of Republicans and Independents. 

Room 28, Palmer House, Chicago. 

Franklin MacVeagh, Edwin Burritt Smith, Wm, T. Baker, 

Chairman. Secretary. Treasurer. 



ADDRESS 

or 

ey. James Freeman Clarke, 

AT TKEMOXT TEMPLE, 

OCTOBER 1, 1884. 

AND THE 

BETTER OF RET. ROBERT COLLYER, D.D. 



Dear : You want to know what I think of the 

beech made in Boston the other evening by my friend 
ames Freeman Clarke, and I will answer you frankly. I 
iiink he was right. His speech, to my mind, was wise, 
lanfuL, and true, and just what we should expect from 
ne who has always made the mere politician give place to 
•ie patriot when the need came, and has stood in the van- 
[tiard as a leader in every true reform. Dr. Clarke has a 
ngular aptitude for this sort of work; the courage also 
c his deep convictions, and the faith which holds on until 
aose come up he has left behind him. I remember more 
Ijian one instance in the twenty-five years I have known 
[id loved him in which he has led a forlorn hope in the 
pod city of which he is now perhaps the most eminent 
; tizen, to find in a few years the old comrades were stand- 
i g with him again, shoulder to shoulder, who had hung 
\ ick puzzled and perplexed by the stand he had taken on 
••me burning question of the time. 

This is not a forlorn hope he is leading now; still I 
ptice the same trouble in talking with Boston men and 
; ading their letters, and look for exactly the same indorse- 



2 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 

ment of my old friend's speech and action when this woe- 
ful war is over we are conducting, for the first time in our 
history, with the Chinese arm of "stink-pots/' and as far 
as I know, I am what Coleridge calls "an inveterate 
hoper." I hope in no long time to see every honest and 
fair-minded man of Dr. Clarke's mind touching the can- 
didate he should vote for, no matter to which party he 
may belong, or who is elected in November. 

You are at perfect liberty to print this note if you 
think it is worth any other man's reading, and however 
widely we may differ in our opinion of the candidates now 
before our people, you must believe in my absolute loyalty 
to this great and free Republic, as I do in yours. 

Indeed yours, Robert Collyer. 



ADDRESS. 

Friends, — We meet here as Republicans, and as Inde- 
pendent Republicans. Once, to be a Republican meant to 
be independent; it meant to follow principle rather than 
party, and to refuse our votes to any man whom we 
deemed unfit for an office, no matter how popular he 
might be, or what influences he might combine in his 
support. But now, unfortunately, men may be Repub- 
licans, and not thus independent; and, therefore, we must 
add this qualifying term, in order to define our position. 
We mean, then, to say that we belong to that class of 
Republicans who in 1876, in 1880, and in this very year 
1884, opposed the nomination of Mr. Blaine, throwing the 
vote and influence of Massachusetts against him in three 
national conventions. Returning from the convention 
which met in Cincinnati in 1876, I heard some delegates 
from Pennsylvania who had voted for Mr. Blaine com- 
plaining that the moral influence of Massachusetts had at 
that time prevented his nomination. "For," said they, 
<< when the convention saw the Massachusetts delegation 
passing by an eminent citizen of a neighboring State in 
New England and voting for Mr. Bristow, of Kentucky, 
they said, ' There must be something morally wrong about 



ADDKESS OF EEV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 6 

Mr. Blaine/" And I recollect that, in our State conven- 
tion at Worcester in 1880, Mr. Boutwell, who is now an 
ardent advocate of Mr. Blaine's election, was so sure of the 
repugnance felt to him by Massachusetts, that his strong- 
est argument to induce us to favor the renomination of 
General Grant was this — that, it Grant did not receive the 
nomination, it would certainly be captured by Blaine. 
And Blaine himself felt so deeply this opposition that he 
uttered some bitter words in the senate against the char- 
acter and history of Massachusetts — so bitter that our 
senator, Mr. Hoar, felt called on to reply with consid- 
erable severity. We also stand where the Republicans 
of Massachusetts stood in the convention at Worcester, 
when General Butler — then seeking a Republican nom- 
ination — moved that a delegate had no right to sit in 
that convention who had said that, if Butler were nom- 
inated, he would not vote for him. Massachusetts Repub- 
licans then decided that they and their delegates were just 
as free after the convention as they were before, and always 
had a right to bolt a bad nomination. Indeed, these argu- 
ments were so stringent that they seem even to have con- 
vinced and converted Butler himself to our view; for now, 
having been a delegate to the Democratic convention at 
Chicago, he has bolted its nomination, and is running on 
his own ticket. 

Finally, we stand where the Republicans of Massachu- 
setts stood in 1875, when they passed the following reso- 
lution, reported by H. L. Dawes, our Massachusetts 
senator. It is in the platform of 'the Republican State 
convention of 1875, of which H. L. Dawes was chairman 
of the committee on resolutions: — 

"It is therefore declared by the Republicans of Massa- 
chusetts that they will support no man for official position 
whose character is not an absolute guarantee of fidelity to 
every public trust; and they invoke the condemnation of 
the ballot box upon any candidate for office who failc 
this test, whatever be his party name or association 



4 ADDRESS OF KEY. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 

Where the Eepublicans of Massachusetts stood in 1876, 
in 1880, and in the present year, we stand to-day. We 
cannot see why a man who was opposed by Massachusetts 
as unfit to be a candidate for the Presidency then, should 
be regarded as fit to be elected to the Presidency now. 
What, then, are our objections to Mr. Blaine? They fall 
into two classes, — his course in congress, which showed 
that he did not understand the duties of a legislator: and 
his course since, in Garfield's cabinet, which proved him 
unfit for the duties of an executive office. I have been ac- 
cused of having a personal hostility or pique against Mr. 
Blaine. Far from it. My personal intercourse with him, 
though slight, has been pleasant. I regard him as an able, 
agreeable, and polished gentleman. My objections to him 
are wholly on public grounds. I have carefully studied 
the Congressional Record of the investigation made in 
1876, and the so-called Mulligan letters. I think that, 
whatever else may be implied and suggested by them, this 
at least is certain: That Mr. Blaine, during the time that 
he was a member of congress and Speaker of the House, 
was earnestly engaged in buying and selling the stocks of 
railroads, — accumulating wealth and deriving special ad- 
vantages from these roads on account of his official position 
and influence; that on one occasion he urged again and again 
that he should receive pecuniary favors, because as Speaker 
of the House he had helped a railroad by his decision; 
that these railroads from which he sought and obtained 
such advantages were those which were receiving help by 
acts of congressional legislation. It is not necessary to v go 
into details. I only say what is plain on the face of these 
transactions: that Mr. Blaine was using his public position 
and influence to accumulate a fortune; that he was receiv- 
ing great pecuniary advantages from moneyed corporations, 
which could only be accounted for by his possessing that 
political position and official influence. Now, we have 
seen as honest a man as ever went from Massachusetts to 
Washington censured by congress for doing what was not 



ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 5 

a tenth part as bad as what Mr. Blaine evidently did. He 
was censured for mixing up his private business with his 
public duties. And yet his motive was the public service, — 
to gain help in carrying through a great national enter- 
prise; and, more than all, he practiced no disguise, but, 
like a man of truth, told the whole story when called upon, 
though while he told it, reputations were dropping around 
him like soldiers in battle. Here comes the misery of it! 
Mr. Blaine concealed the truth, denied the facts, and 
falsified the record. That is the bitterness of it. Oh! if 
he had only come forward manfully in that investigation, 
and said: "Yes, I admit that I did what I ought not. I 
see now that it was wrong. I wish I had not done it. 
But, at all events, I will not deny the facts." If he had 
done that, I believe we should all of us have forgiven him. 
I, for one, would vote for him for the Presidency. 

With these documents before us, the Congressional 
Record and the Mulligan letters,— documents the authen- 
ticity of which is not denied, — we are sorrowfully brought 
to the conclusion that the present candidate of the Repub- 
lican party is an unfit, discreditable, and unsafe person to 
be President of this nation. He is unfit, because he has 
used public office and position for private gain and per- 
sonal emolument; discreditable, because he has disguised 
and concealed those transactions by constant duplicity; 
and unsafe, because, during his brief term of office in an 
executive department, he has interfered without justice or 
reason in the affairs of other republics, and prostituted in 
the service of private interests the power confided in him 
for public ends. No doubt, he has upright and honorable 
men among his supporters, — some who, like Mr. Hoar, 
support him eagerly,— some who, like Mr. Roosevelt, sup- 
port him languidly, and others, like Mr. Edmunds, who 
maintain their place in their party, but cannot make up 
their mind to say a single word in his defense. It was 
certainly an event without a parallel in the history of 
politics, when the presiding officer of a meeting called to 



b ADDRESS OF KEV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 

confirm the nomination of a Presidential candidate did not 
allude to him at all in the course of his whole speech. It 
was like what Tacitus says of the absence of the statues 
Brutus and Oassius from the funeral of Junia, — "they 
were all the more conspicuous because they were not 
there/' But the pity of it is that the former leaders of the 
Republican party have now become the followers. The 
leaders now are those who skillfully combine politics and 
personal gain, men who belong to rings, men who sneer at 
civil service reform, as one of Mr. Blaine's chief wire- 
pullers has lately done, as "namby-pamby politics, cant, 
and babyism." The real leaders of the party now are such 
as we scarcely care to name. The only policy which Mr. 
Blaine seems earnestly to have adopted is that of keeping the 
tariff as high as possible, so as to satisfy at once the manu- 
facturers of New England and New York, the iron masters 
of Pennsylvania, and the wool-growers of Ohio. The 
only policy of which he is the exponent is to continue to 
compel the people to pay in taxes $100,000,000 more than 
is needed for the expenses of the nation, and then to dis- 
tribute it among the States. It seems to me that nothing 
could be more dangerous than four years of an adminis- 
tration like this. One pretty sure result would be the 
destruction of the Republican party. Four years of 
Blaine's administration would bury it in a dishonored 
grave. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, I think that the only hope 
for the Republican party itself is the defeat of Blaine. 
Going out of power for awhile, it would recover something 
of its former quality, and return to its better traditions. 
We do not cease to be Republicans because we vote for 
once by the side of our opponents. When the best Repub- 
licans of Buffalo united with the Democrats in choosing 
Cleveland their mayor, they did not cease to be Repub- 
licans. When the Republicans of the State of New York 
united with the Democrats in electing Cleveland their 
governor by one hundred and ninety thousand majority, 
they did not cease to be Republicans. Nor should -we 



ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 7 

cease to be Eepublicans if we joined the better class of 
Democrats in electing Cleveland to the Presidency. We 
should only show that we prefer our country to party, and 
the safety of the nation to the temporary triumph of so- 
called Eepublicanism. Those who are so carried away by 
party spirit and the influence of a name that they think 
the party which supports Mr. Blaine is the same with that 
which elected Abraham Lincoln, because both are called 
Eepublicans, show that they are cheated by words and 
mistake appearance for reality. Such loyalty to party is 
disloyalty to the country; and to those who act thus we 
may apply the poet's words, and say, — 

"Their honor rooted in dishonor stands, 
And faith unfaithful makes them falsely true." 

I»well remember how, years ago, when Daniel Webster 
made his famous 7th of March speech, the leaders of his 
party in Boston seemed for a time struck dumb with aston- 
ishment, anger, and grief. But soon the power of parYy 
reasserted itself, and before long a meeting was held in 
which these same men thanked him for what he had said. 
The same power of party shows itself again to-day. With 
scarce an exception, the leading Eepublican public men in 
this State have opposed Blaine until he was nominated; 
with scarce an exception, they have since come round to 
excuse, to defend, to admire, and finally to put him by the 
side of Washington and Lincoln. Does not this remind 
us of our copybook lines, — " First endure, next pity, then 
embrace"? Some of my friends cannot bear the idea of a 
Democratic success, because the Democrats were so bad 
forty years ago. To such an argument what statute of 
limitations can be applied? The Democrats to-day are not 
those who began the war twenty-three years ago, not those 
who defended slavery before that time. Let us follow Mr. 
Hale's good advice, and "look forward, not backward." 
Let us remember that "new occasions teach new duties," 
and not attempt, as Lowell says, to open the portals of the 



8 ADDRESS OF KEY. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 

future with the blood-rusted key of the past. Mr. Chair- 
man, when a citizen of a vast nation like this is to perform 
the serious duty of voting for its chief magistrate, he 
should first ask: "What is a President most needed for at 
the present time? What are the most imminent dangers 
which he must avert by the power of his magistracy, the 
principal evils of the hour which he must subdue by the 
influence of his authority? And who is the mau^he best 
fitted for this work?" To me, Mr. Chairman, the chief 
evils which endanger our nation and public life to-day 
seem those so forcibly described by our Massachusetts 
senator, Mr. Hoar, many years ago. They have not 
diminished since that time. We have since then seen 
the robberies of the public treasury by whisky rings and 
Star-route rings, which the government has found itself 
unable to punish. Strange that Mr. Hoar, who brings 
this terrible indictment against the national honor, should 
accuse President Eliot of teaching our youth to be ashamed 
of their own history. Both President Eliot and Senator 
Hoar do the State service when they plainly point out these 
public crimes and public dangers. Each is seeking to 
teach the young men how to help to make better history. 
"My own public life," said Mr. Hoar, in May, 1876, 
"has been a very brief and insignificant one, extending 
little beyond the duration of a single term of senatorial 
office; but, in that brief period, I have seen live judges of 
a high court of the United States driven from office by 
threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministra- 
tion. I have heard the taunt from friendliest lips that, 
when the United States presented herself in the East to 
take part with the civilized world in generous competition 
in the arts of life, the only products of her institutions in 
which she surpassed all others beyond question was her 
corruption. I have seen in the State in the Union fore- 
most in power and wealth four judges of her courts 
impeached for corruption, and the political administra- 
tion of her chief city become a disgrace and by-word 



ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 9 

throughout the world. I have seen the chairman of the 
committee on military affairs in the House, now a distin- 
guished member of this court, rise in his place and demand 
the expulsion of four of his associates for making sale of 
their official privilege of selecting the youths to be educated 
at our great military school. When the greatest railroad 
of the world, binding together the continent, and uniting 
the two great seas which wash our shores, was finished, I 
have seen our national triumph and exultation turned 
to bitterness and shame by the unanimous reports of 
three committees of Congress — two of the House and 
one here — that every step of that mighty enterprise 
had been taken in fraud. I have heard, in higher 
places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown 
old in public office that the true way by which power 
should be gained in the republic is to bribe the peo- 
ple with the offices created for their service, and the 
true end for which it should be used, when gained, is the 
promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of per- 
sonal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts the 
footsteps of the trusted companions of the President. 

"These things have passed into history. The Hallam, 
or the Tacitus, or the Sismondi, or the Macaulay who 
writes the annals of our time will record them with his 
inexorable pen. And now, when a high cabinet officer, 
the constitutional adviser of the executive, flees from office 
before charges of corruption, shall the historian add that 
the Senate treated the demand of the people for its judg- 
ment of condemnation as a farce, and laid down its high 
functions before the sophistries and jeers of the criminal 
lawyer? Shall he speculate about the petty political cal- 
culations as to the effect on one party or the other which 
induced his judges to connive at the escape of the great 
public criminal? Or, on the other hand, shall he close the 
chapter by narrating how these things are detected, re- 
formed, and punished by constitutional processes which 
the wisdom of our fathers devised for us, and the virtue 



10 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 

and purity of the people found their vindication in the 
justice of the Senate?" 

This is the great evil which threatens the virtue of the 
community. It is the mad desire for great fortunes which 
causes the defalcations taking place every day, — of presi- 
dents and cashiers of banks, of town and city treasurers, 
of trustees holding the estates of widows and orphans, and 
forces them to finish lives begun in usefulness in exile, 
death and dishonor. The rings and lobbies which infest 
the halls of Congress and dictate legislation, make those 
halls the places round which the infection mostly rages; 
and, to check it, we need, most of all, a man as President 
honest and firm, belonging to the older type of magistrates, 
who has the courage to defy bad men in his own party and 
to check assaults on the treasury when mado by his own 
friends. And such a man we have in Grover Cleveland. 
First, as mayor of Buffalo, he delivered the city from the 
plunderers who were laying it waste, and received the cor- 
dial thanks of the best 'men of both parties. Next, as 
Governor of New York, he has supported, as my friend 
Dorman B. Eaton and others assure me, every measure 
tending to protect the people from official plunderers. 
Because he has plucked the prey from the jaws of the 
wicked, the baser elements of his party have combined 
with bitter hatred against him. This itself is a proof that 
he is the man needed now to execute justice on a still 
higher platform. For he had, evidently, only to concede 
a little, to give way a little, to make a few promises to 
these Democratic leaders, bribe them with a few offices, to 
have their support, as he now has their determined and 
unconcealed and inveterate hostility. 

"But what," it will be said, "shall we support an im- 
moral and depraved man for President, — a man whose life 
is stained with debauchery and vice?" No. No such 
man shall ever have my vote; for, no matter what his other 
qualities might be, he never could fulfill his public duties 
right. A depraved man could never have the moral 



ADDRESS OF REV. J AS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 11 

strength to resist evil. But I do not believe Cleveland to 
be such a man, and I will give my reasons for this convic- 
tion. 

First. — If he were so, why did the best citizens of 
Buffalo, who knew him well, support and elect him tri- 
umphantly for the office of mayor? Why was not this 
charge made against him then by those who knew him? 
Why did such an eminent man as Sherman S. Rogers lead 
the Republican party to his side? And why were these 
charges not brought forward, when he was candidate for 
Governor? The apparent reason is that there were people 
enough in Buffalo and New York who knew that such 
charges were false, and only when his candidacy extends 
to states where he is not known are the accusations made 
against him. 

Second. — These charges originated in one Buffalo news- 
paper, of which hundreds of thousands of copies have 
been circulated, which accused him of "beastly drunken- 
ness," "habitual immorality with women/' of being found 
in a drunken fight in a saloon, of seduction, and of being 
a notorious libertine. Thereupon, Rev. Dr. Twining, one 
of the editors of the New York Independent, was sent to 
Buffalo to investigate the facts. This is his report: 

"There remain the worst and damning charges of gen- 
eral libertinism and drunkenness. I say distinctly, after 
abundant inquiry, they are false. They are, I believe, the 
product of the imagination of the stews. Every attempt 
to trace them led back into the merest gossip of saloons 
and brothels. On the other hand, my inquiry of the 
noblest Christian men in this city, especially in the legal 
profession, men above all reproach, men who will vote for 
him, and men who will vote and speak against him for 
political reasons, men who know Cleveland most intimately, 
who have been his partners in business or his nearest 
neighbors, men who know him by day and by night, bring 
the unanimous reply that it is utterly impossible that such 
reports can be true. He is a man of true and kind heart, 



12 ADDKESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAK CLARKE. 

frank and open, so intensely devoted to his business duties 
that it is impossible that he should be a debauchee. He 
has the heartiest respect of the best families in the city, 
who only regret that he keeps himself so much out of the 
society to which he would be welcome. There are some 
severe prejudices against Mr. Cleveland in Buffalo. They 
have their chief seat in the saloons, against whose tyranny 
his election to the mayoralty was the protest of all good 
citizens of both parties. They have not forgiven him for 
their defeat. From the best sources of information, I 
received testimony of the strongest character that Mr. 
Cleveland is a born ruler of men, of the greatest inde- 
pendence and honesty of character, a man who believes in 
reform to the bottom of his soul, and has the independence 
to carry it out, and a man on whom the responsibilities of 
office have rested with a serious and solemn weight. The 
men are very few who could have received such testimoni- 
als to their efficiency and conscientiousness and independ- 
ence in public duties as I heard given to Mr. Cleveland 
from the most influential and trustworthy citizens of Buf- 
falo. 

Third. — A committee of sixteen Buffalo gentlemen 
were appointed to search this matter to the bottom, and 
this is the substance of their report: 

"We have, therefore, through a committee appointed 
from our number for that purpose, carefully and deliber- 
ately made such an investigation; and we have taken every 
available means to ascertain the precise facts in each case. 
The general charges of drunkenness and gross immorality 
which are made against Governor Cleveland are absolutely 
false. His reputation for morality has been good. There 
is no foundation for any statement to the contrary. He 
was sought out and nominated for the mayoralty against 
his will, and was supported for that position by the larger 
portion of the educated, intelligent and moral citizens of 
Buffalo without regard to politics, and on purely personal 
grounds. We are able to speak from personal knowledge, 



ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 13 

as his acquaintances of long standing, and to say that his 
general private life has been that of a quiet, orderly, self- 
respecting, and always highly respected citizen. Since he 
assumed his present office, his visits to Buffalo have been 
few and of short duration. It is susceptible of absolute 
proof, and has been proved to us, that upon no one of 
these visits has anything occurred to justify the statements 
which have been made by his detractors. The charge that 
he has recently taken part in a drunken and licentious de- 
bauch in Buffalo, on the occasion of such a visit, is en- 
tirely false." 

Fourth. — One of the signers of this paper, Josiah G. 
Munro, is a gentleman whom I know well. I wrote to 
him personally, and received the following answer, which 
I will read to you : 

Buffalo, N. Y., September 6, 1884. 
Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Magnolia, Mass. : 

My Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge your valued letter 
of the 5th. During the ten years I have lived in Buffalo, 
Mr. Cleveland has been my own trusted legal adviser as 
well as that of the Boston corporation whose interests I 
represent. 1 have never seen anything in Mr. Cleveland 
which would lead me to think he was a licentious man or 
one who would associate with dissolute or abandoned 
characters. His associates, whom I know, are men of high 
standing in the community, — most of them of the highest 
standing. He would be welcomed into my own household, 
and I do not think anything has kept him out of Buffalo 
society but his own modesty and retiring habits. It is im- 
possible to answer a general accusation except in a general 
way. Wherever our committee could find a specific charge, 
they followed it to the source and absolutely disproved it. 
I agree in thinking that this failure to substantiate specific 
charges is good proof that the general charge is false. 
The whole tone of Mr. Cleveland's daily life and conver- 
sation, as I have seen it in private life, is so high, his faith- 
fulness in the discharge of duty is so marked, and the 



14 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN" CLARKE. 

controlling principal of his public life is so grand and yet 
so simple that it would be impossible for me to believe he 
was either a profligate or licentious man, unless the charge 
was supported by strong and convincing proofs. Believe 
me, sir, very truly yours, 

Josiah G. Mukro. 

Fifth. — A few days since, I met at Saratoga Dr. Put- 
nam, of Brooklyn, New York, who told me that he had 
within a few weeks been at the seaside with an eminent 
and well-known citizen of Buffalo, Mr. E. Carlton Sprague, 
who told him he had known Cleveland intimately for 
many years, and that, though he was a Republican him- 
self /and should probably vote the Republican ticket, yet 
that, " if any one was not prevented by political reasons 
from voting for Cleveland, he need not be prevented by 
moral reasons." 

Sixth. — I recently visited Governor Cleveland in Al- 
bany, and spent an hour with him alone in his private 
room. He talked with simplicity and freedom, with a 
manner which carried conviction of his truthfulness. He 
did not pretend that he had not done wrong, he did not 
wish me to think of him as better than he was; but he 
thought he had a right to say that, since he had been in 
public office, and for the last eight or ten years, no man 
could truthfully accuse of having done anything to dis- 
grace himself or to offend his friends. From what he 
said, I was satisfied that no one had suffered more than 
himself from his past errors, and I was convinced that he 
had left them behind. But I gathered this, not from any 
formal confession or profession, but from the depth of con- 
viction with which he spoke. 

The one sin which he committed, and which neither 
he nor his friends disguise or excuse, is that he lived, some 
ten years ago, with a widow as his wife, without being mar- 
ried' to her. This was an offense which no one will defend; 
but he has greviously suffered for it, and shown his repent- 
ance in the truest way, by a change of life, and by doing 
good and useful work "meet for repentance." I agree 
with my old friend, Bishop Huntington, of New York, 
that Cleveland, having risen above these past errors and 
left them behind him, is not, if we follow the principles 
of the gospel of Christ, to be prevented from rising to any 
height of usefulness. He has shown his repentance in a 
true way, by doing works meet for repentance. It is only 



ADDRESS OF REV. J AS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 15 

a hard and narrow bigotry which would condemn a man 
forever for a past ill deed. 

" But," you may say, " will you reward a man with the 
presidency who has committed this offense against social 
morals?" No; public office is not a reward, but a duty. 
If we make him, or any other man, our president, it is 
because he is well fitted for the work of a president. He 
was not rewarded by the people of Buffalo for this offense 
{though they knew it perfectly), when they made him 
mayor. They took him because they needed him to 
do a work; and he did it honorably and well. The people 
of the State did not reward him when he was chosen gov- 
ernor. He was taken because he was the right man in 
the right place. If elected President, it will not be as a 
reward of merit, but as selected to do the work because he 
has the power. If the nation needs him for that work, 
he must not be excused from doing it because of any sin 
committed in the past. This great people have a right to 
the best service they can find, anywhere, and in any man. 
The difference between Mr. Blaine and Cleveland as can- 
didates is not merely that the offenses of one belong to 
private life, and of the other to public affairs, though that 
distinction is important, but chiefly this: that the offense 
of Mr. Cleveland is not disguised nor excused nor de- 
fended, but that of Mr. Blaine is denied or excused or 
defended. The great harm to morality does not come so 
much from the wrong action as from its being defended, 
palliated and called right. This great injury to the pub- 
lic morals is now being done by Mr. Blaine's advocates. 
They are putting evil for good and good for evil, darkness 
for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and 
sweet°for bitter.^ No young man, who has seen what an 
awful burden Governor Cleveland has had to carry in conse- 
quence of this one offense, can possibly be tempted by his 
example to any like iniquity. But, when a man who has 
devoted himself to making money out of office is defended 
for doing so by our best men, when asked to be paid for 
doing justice in a high judicial position is treated as a 
mere accident, when asking a man to perjure himself by 
writing a letter prepared for him full of falsehoods is con- 
sidered as something not worth speaking of, then the 
morals of society are being cankered at their heart. Oh, 
it grieves me to see how men, whom I have honored, and 
honor still, can allow themselves to be thus misled by the 
spirit of party ! It is the saddest fact in the story of our 



16 ADDRESS OF REV. JAS. FREEMAN CLARKE. 

time; and I say, " Oh for an hour of Charles Sumner, or 
for one burning speech from John Andrew! " 

"One blast upon his bugle horn 
' Were worth a thousand men . " 

But the " knights are dust, and their good swords 
rust." Instead of the upright soul of Sumner, we have a 
bronze statue of him in the Public Garden, probably 
erected by the help of the Eepublicans who assisted in re- 
moving him from his place as chairman of the committee 
on foreign affairs to please General Grant, or who passed 
a vote of censure on him in the Massachusetts Legislature 
because they thought it would be popular. Instead of 
John Andrew, I am glad to say that we have a son who 
inherits his father's spirit, and will not become a slave of 
party in order to go to Congress. And I see around me 
young men full of the energy and hope of youth who will 
yet redeem the Republican party, and set it in a better way. 
I saw its rise, and I may live to see its fall; but, if it falls, 
something better will take its place. For this Independent 
movement has come to stay. Some of the Republican 
orators who have come from a distance to instruct us have 
been disposed to jeer at this Independent movement as a 
very trifling affair. So, I remember, men jeered at the 
humble beginnings of the Liberty party, and the Free Soil 
party, and at the whole anti-slavery movement. They 
laughed and made merry as that great storm was coming 
up the sky, as the people did in the days of Noah, and 
knew nothing till the flood came and swept them all away. 

Gentlemen, if you will, permit me to close this serious 
speech with a light anecdote. I remember my friend, the 
late James T. Fields, once told me he ©\ras crossing the 
Common one night, when a partially inebriated man 
stopped him, and pointing to the sky, said, " Why does 
not that rocket come down?" "Rocket!" said Fields: 
"that's not a rocket, that's a star P' "Oh! I beg your 
pardon," said the other: " I am a stranger in these parts." 
Those who think the Independent movement is only a 
rocket, and that it is about to fall, are, I think, strangers 
in these parts. They do not know the motives nor the 
men nor the spirit nor the power of this movement. It 
has come to work, and it has come to stay. 



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